What to Watch When BlackBerry Maker RIM Reports Earnings Thursday

The new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone is displayed at an AT&T store after it went on sale in the U.S. on March 22.

When Research In Motion Ltd. reports its fourth-quarter earnings tomorrow, investors and analysts will be keeping a sharp eye for any indication of whether or not the company’s long-awaited new BlackBerry is selling well.

But perhaps just as importantly, they’ll be looking to see if the company is properly positioned to maintain a free-spending marketing campaign in support of the phone.

The new phone, the Z10, was only on sale for about a month in small-ish markets like Canada and the U.K. before the quarter ended. Still, RIM executives have been chalking up those launches as successes, without giving out any numbers. That’s ramped up expectations among investors and fans.

Analysts are all over the map with their forecasts for how many of the new phones the company sold in the quarter–from as little as a few hundred thousand to well north of a million.

If RIM can break that one million mark, it will be a good sign for a phone that was delayed by more than a year and just hit the U.S. market last week.

But even if sales are strong, RIM watchers will be wondering: Can the company keep up its biggest-ever marketing campaign while maintaining a comfortable cash balance? RIM reported cash and cash equivalent of around $3 billion in the previous quarter.

More nuggets of insight–and any unexpected surprises–are likely to come from company executives during a conference call with analysts after the earnings are released.

RIM’s earnings are expected around 7 a.m. ET. Digits will be live-blogging the call to follow at 8 a.m. ET.

Here are some questions investors are likely eager to ask:

–Any details on the U.S. launch? What kind of promotional marketing muscle are U.S. carriers putting behind the launch?

–Any updates on potential partnerships or licensing deals that may have come from the long-running company’s strategic review?

–What’s the status of the launch timetable for the keyboard-equipped BlackBerry Q10?

Readers, let us know in the comments what you’ll be looking for from tomorrow’s earnings release and call.